Mrythdom: Game of Time (35 page)

“Even though he mated with me before your bed had even grown cold with his absence?”

Lashyla shrugged. “So you say.”

“So it
was!
” the queen thundered. “I would not lie to my own daughter.”

“I do not care, mother, I will have Aurelius.”

“Then you are a fool!”

“Surely I don’t need to tell you that a challenge takes precedence over any criminal charges, so you must postpone his sentence until his rightful judge and owner can be decided.”

“Fine,” the queen spent a few moments slapping the water with her tail and glaring darkly up at her daughter. “You realize you cannot challenge me until three days hence. I could have him killed before then.”

“Not while there is a question as to who is his proper owner.”

The queen snorted. “It does not matter. He will not survive against Thorin.”

“We will see. Don’t forget that he is an elder.”

The queen smiled viciously. “Even if you win him from me, how will
you
decide to punish him? Stealing is a serious crime. Unless you can replace the stolen property, and I doubt that you can, he will only end up back in the ring.”

“And if I, as his judge, decide to let him off?”

“Then it will become your responsibility, my
sweet
, to
appease
me. How, pray tell, shall you do that?”

“Let us cross that reef when we come to it. For now, you must order Aurelius’s sentence to be lifted.”

The queen waved a hand at her daughter. “Do it yourself and quit disturbing my peaceful morning.”

Lashyla nodded and bowed as she left. “As you wish, Mother.”

*   *   *

 “Open the cell,” Lashyla demanded.

The warden fiddled with a large key in the old lock, and then the gloomy cell opened, and the shadows inside took shape. Lashyla saw both Aurelius and his large, hairy companion walking toward her. She stood just inside the entrance, and the warden stood beside her with his glochi stick. Her new confidant, Martanel stood to her right.

“A guy just can’t get a decent nap around here,” Aurelius said. “How do you expect me to fight and die for your amusement if I’m too tired to even stand?”

Lashyla felt her lip twitch up in a smile. “Well, I can hardly blame you for being tired after last night.”

“Yeah, about that . . .” The elder stopped before her with a frown, and Lashyla caught Martanel making a gesture of silence to him.

“About what?” she asked.

Aurelius shook his head and gave her half a roguish smile. “Nothing.” Her eyes narrowed at that, and he said, “I only wish we’d had more time to be together.”

She smiled seductively back and reaching out to cup his lovely cheek, now with a full growth of honey-brown beard upon it. “We will have that time. I’ve just been to speak with the queen, and she has agreed to lift your sentence.”

Aurelius’s eyes widened and he looked suddenly to Martanel. “Is this true?”

“It is,” the guardsman confirmed.

“Then I’m free to go?” Aurelius asked, now looking to the warden, but the warden made no move to get out of the way.

“No,” Lashyla answered. Aurelius’s face fell. “The only way I could get her to lift your sentence was to challenge her for you.”

“But I thought . . . did you have time to find someone who could fight for me?”

“I did not.”

“Then . . .” Aurelius shook his head. “I’m confused.”

“Three days from now you will face but one opponent in the ring. If you can beat him, you will walk free.”

“One opponent . . . who is he?”

“Ringmaster Thorin.”

Aurelius blinked. “The announcer from the Ring?”

“He’s not just an announcer. He runs the Ring, trains the fighters, and defends my mother’s mates from challenges. He has never lost.”

Aurelius grinned wryly. “Well if he had, he wouldn’t be alive now, would he?”

Lashyla was shaking her head. “No, not all fights are to the death. You
can
forfeit a fight when you are losing, but it is risky, because if your maiden is not satisfied with your performance on her behalf, she may have you killed anyway.”

“Great, so I’ll just forfeit and live to fight another day.”

“That will not help you. If you forfeit, you will remain my mother’s mate, and she will have you executed for stealing.”

“But I thought you said—”

“Your sentence was only lifted because there is a question as to who should punish you. Each maiden is the sole judge and owner of her mates. She alone can decide how to punish them, and it has not been decided whether my mother has the right to punish you. If you lose, you will remain my mother’s mate, and she will punish you as she sees fit.”

“And if I win, how will
you
decide to punish me?”

Lashyla grinned lasciviously. “Don’t worry, I’m certain you will find a way to please your new maiden.”

Aurelius frowned. “Well, not much chance of that. If Thorin has never been defeated, and I can’t forfeit, how is facing him any better than being executed?”

“If you were facing execution you’d have to fight increasingly difficult opponents until one of them killed you. There would be no way to win. Now you will have at least a fighting chance.”

“What weapons will we be using?”

“Tridents, bows, swords, staffs, daggers—whatever they give you as your starting weapon, and whatever you can find in the ring.”

“What about . . .”

“About what?”

“I have a weapon of my own that I brought with me. It’s in my quarters.”

Lashyla cocked her head. “What kind of weapon is it?”

“Ah, it’s something like a bow, but it doesn’t look very similar.”

“Do you have two?”

“No, I only brought the one. I have more on shore with my . . . with my vessel.”

“Then it’s no good, they won’t let you fight with a weapon that your opponent doesn’t also have access to.”

“So much for that,” Aurelius muttered.

“Don’t despair, my lovely,” she said, while caressing his cheek. “I’ll send my brother, Cardale, to you to advise you. Thorin is his father and he spent many hours training Cardale for his inevitable selection to fight in the ring. Cardale will know everything there is to know about Thorin’s fighting techniques. He will help you to survive.”

Aurelius frowned. “Why would he help me kill his own father?”

“Because his father tried to kill him.”

The sound of drums beating woke Aurelius from his nap and a pair of guards came bustling into his cell a moment later. Reven was eyeing their glochi sticks very warily, being careful to avoid the tentacles writhing at the ends.

“Come on, training time,” one of the guards said, using his stick to herd them out of their cell.

They ascended two flights of stairs and then followed the corridor from the landing. At some point the deck under foot turned to soft sand. They rounded a corner in the corridor and a narrow circle of light appeared in the distance. They walked out into that light and found themselves standing in the Ring. It was already full of other men, and a few trolls, all busy training for their upcoming battles. For the most part, they weren’t training together, though a few of the men were practicing swordplay with sticks. Aurelius couldn’t see everyone, since his view of the arena was broken by rising mountains of brightly glowing coral, but by his estimation there were over fifty men and trolls busily training. He and Reven appeared to be the last arrivals.

A sudden
skrish
skrish skrish
of sand being scattered underfoot drew Aurelius’s attention back the way he’d come. Then he saw Esephalia enter the Ring, guarded by half a dozen men with glochi sticks held warily to her back. Aurelius frowned, wondering to himself that he and Reven required only two such guards, yet all by herself she merited six.

He and Reven were herded through the Ring until they came to a particularly large group of men. Standing to one side was a giant of a man wearing nothing but ragged green shorts; he had glistening scars all over his heavily-muscled body, and stood maybe a head shorter than Reven, but he couldn’t have been any lighter. His sheer breadth and the thickness of his barrel-shaped chest gave testimony to the fact that he was surely the stronger of the two—at least until Reven turned into a wolf. That man turned to them and gave a wicked, gap-toothed grin.

“New arrivals. Excellent. What have we?” The man stalked up to them with easy, cat-like grace that belied his size. He flicked a long blond braid of hair over his shoulder, and stopped before them, looking them up and down appraisingly. After a few moments of scrutiny, his gaze slid sideways to their guards. “Why is the big one naked?”

“We found him like that. He’s a werewolf.”

The large blond man raised an eyebrow. “A werewolf, huh? Well he is hairy enough. Let me see you wolfy.”

One of the guards standing nearest Reven cuffed him across the back of his head. Reven answered with a snarl. “Go on,” the guard goaded, cuffing him again. “Show the ringmaster what you can do.”

Reven snarled again and made a visible effort to calm himself, despite repeated shoving from behind. One of the other guards made a move with his glochi stick, and before Aurelius could warn him, the tentacled creature made brief contact with Reven’s bare backside. Reven howled and fell on his face in the sand. A few moments later he was up and snarling, a vein pulsing rapidly in his forehead. The air seemed to shimmer, and as Aurelius watched, Reven shook himself bodily, like a wet dog. Reven sunk down onto all fours and thick black fur appeared where before there had been a thinner coat of scraggly hair. And just like that, suddenly there was a giant wolf standing where the man had been. He snarled with an impressive display of teeth at the one who had poked him with the glochi stick, and the man took a quick step back.

“Impressive,” the ringmaster said, nodding. “Well, I’m sure that will help you stay alive in here.” Turning to Aurelius, he held out his hand and said, “I’m Thorin.”

Aurelius eyed the proffered hand as though it were a snake that might bite him. This giant of a man was the one that Aurelius would have to fight and kill if he were to live. Thorin sensed Aurelius’s hesitation and grinned all the wider. “For luck,” he said, sticking his hand out further.

Aurelius accepted the handshake and offered his name, “Aurelius.”

The ringmaster’s cold gray eyes widened and suddenly the force of his grip was painful and grinding the bones in Aurelius’s hand together. “Well, I have nothing against you, boy,” the ringmaster said, his words belying the action. Then Thorin pulled Aurelius close and whispered in his ear, “But my queen does.”

When Thorin released Aurelius it was with a shove that almost sent him sprawling. “I’m afraid I cannot train you. It would be unethical.” The man heaved his mighty shoulders in a shrug. “I guess you’ll have to train yourself.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

Skrish, skrish, skrish. . .

Aurelius watched the ringmaster leave and wondered if perhaps Thorin won all his fights because none of his opponents ever received proper training. On that happy thought, he turned away to see what Reven was doing, but the wolf had already bounded off. He was running in a mad circle around the ring, now nothing but a distant streak of black fur. Watching the wolf, Aurelius frowned. Surely Reven was not still expected to fight in the ring if the queen had lifted Aurelius’s sentence?

He’d have to talk to Lashyla about that.

In the meantime, he had training to do and precious little time to do it. Three days. What could he hope to accomplish in three days? He couldn’t get himself into better shape, so there was no point doing any strength training. He admitted that some cardio and endurance training could probably help in that time, but ultimately he decided to practice with the unfamiliar weapons instead.

After an hour of throwing tridents, firing bows, tossing fishing nets, and sparring with random strangers using the wooden swords, Aurelius realized that he could be in some real trouble. He’d consistently missed the targets with the tridents and the bow except when standing from the nearest range lines, and he’d lost all but one of his duels with wooden swords.

He was at a great disadvantage. Everyone else had doubtless grown up with such weapons, but he had never held a bow, trident, sword, or dagger in all his life. There’d never been any need to. Here he was a marksman with all types of weapons in his time, and utterly useless with the weapons of the future.

Limping away from his final duel, Aurelius fingered his bruised ribs where he’d received countless jabs and even a few weighty strikes from the sparring swords. He made his way over to a flat patch of blue coral and sat down there to spend a few moments feeling sorry for himself and contemplate his impending doom.

It was while he was contemplating doom, that doom came for him with a booming voice. “Aha! Gral find you! Now Gral going to eat you!”

Aurelius looked up to see Gral the troll charging across the sand toward him. He had a massive trident in one hand, and he was already rearing back for the throw. Terror dawning absently, Aurelius slowly rose to his feet. Once standing, he hesitated, wondering if he should start running—or if he could even hope to outrun the troll. He decided that he couldn’t, and rather held his ground.

“Gral, none of us meant to leave you here! We were prisoners, too. We couldn’t get you out!

“Lies!”

“Wait!”

Suddenly the troll stopped running, and he skidded to a stop, pushing out a wave of sand as his foot dug in. For an instant Aurelius was relieved, feeling sure his arguments had changed Gral’s mind, then he watched the troll rear back to throw his massive trident.

Aurelius’s heart seized in his chest, and for an instant he was frozen, wondering whether to dive to the left or to the right. Then Grall’s arm snapped straight, and Aurelius dove to the right, but the supposedly stupid troll had already anticipated the move. Aurelius watched with wide, horror-filled eyes as the trident tracked him through his dive. . . .

*   *   *

 “Shatera!”

There came a sharp
crack
and suddenly the trident snapped. The two pieces went tumbling through the air; the head of the trident dipped and dug into the sand in front of Aurelius, while the broken pole end sailed straight into him, slapping him on the back. He gritted his teeth against the bone-cracking force of the blow and quickly climbed to his feet.

Gral roared, but not at Aurelius. He was looking up, almost to the coral-crusted ceiling of the Ring. Aurelius followed the troll's gaze to the top of the mountain of coral behind him where a woman with long blonde hair stood gazing down on them. She had a bow in one hand, and an arrow in the other, and as they watched, she calmly fitted the one to the other and drew the bowstring.

“Dumb elf get in Gral's way!” Gral roared, his face flushing mauve.

“Make one move,” she warned, “and I’ll put a hole where your brain should be.”

Gral roared unintelligibly and shook his fist at her. “Gral kill you!”

“You are welcome to try.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” a new voice asked.

Aurelius turned to see a pair of guards approaching. They took in the scene with a glance and quickly identified Gral as the troublemaker. They swung their glochi sticks and shocked him to his knees without a moment’s hesitation. The troll roared again, and soon his ire had found a new target. Gral rounded on them, spitting fury. One of the guards pointed toward the outer edges of the Ring. “Go run it off or you’ll be back in your cell without lunch.”

Gral roared once more in defiance, and dodged another thrust from a glochi stick before dashing off as he’d been told.

The guard who’d spoken shook his head, and said under his breath, “I’ll be glad to be rid of that one.” He nodded to Aurelius and frowned in bemusement as his eyes alit on the broken pieces of Gral’s trident. “You okay?”

“Fine, thanks. Just a little misunderstanding.”

The guards seemed reluctant to accept that explanation, but seeing that they were no longer needed, they turned and left. Once they had gone, Esephalia came down from her sniper’s nest and gave Aurelius a stern look. “You shouldn’t make a troll angry.”

“I didn’t—well, not on purpose. It’s a long story. How did you do that? I thought only wizards could use magic.”

“Anyone can use magic if they’re taught. Some are better at it than others—that can’t be taught.”

“So why don’t I see more people using magic?”

“It takes years of practice and dedication to learn. Few people have the patience. Fewer still have the patience to teach it unless the pupil demonstrates a talent for it.”

“Ah . . .” Aurelius nodded as though he understood perfectly. “I guess you couldn’t teach me in the next two days, then?”

The elvish woman raised her eyebrows.

Aurelius smiled and waved his hand. “Never mind.”

She laughed. “You are a funny character, elder. I’ll be sad to watch you die.”

Aurelius’s smile vanished. “Thanks. Anything else you could teach me that might help me live?”

“I could show you how to use a bow and arrow.”

“That would great, Esephria.”

“Ese
phal
ia.”

“Sorry,” he said as they walked toward the shooting range.

“You can call me Esa, if that’s easier for you.”

“Esa . . . yes, much easier, thank you.”

They reached the shooting range and found it deserted. No one saw the point to practicing with a bow and arrow when the combat would be limited to relatively short-ranged engagements. Aurelius picked up the biggest bow he could find and began testing the string. He found he couldn’t even draw it.

Esephalia took the bow from him with a smile. “That one is for trolls. Here—” She handed him a much smaller bow that looked almost like a toy by comparison. “—this is a composite bow, made of tinsel wood and saplings from the darkling forest.”